A Proposal! My Side of the Story

It was the fourth of May 2008 in the City of Angels. I had awaited this day with anticipation. It was marked on my Google Calendar as:

What: Quality boyfriend/girlfriend time! Woop Woop!
Where: Everywhere all day!

Mr. Tortolito and I were about a week away from our 4.5 year anniversary (yep, we celebrate half years). Unfortch, our anniversary fell on a weekday and we really wanted to have a free day all to ourselves. May 4th happened to be ideal to have our "quality boyfriend/girlfriend time" anniversary celebration.

The day started off with Sunday mass with Mr. Tortolito's family. During the Eucharist, Mr. Tortolito likes to pray by the Virgin Mary statue and I usually join him. On this particular day, after a quick prayer Mr. Tortolito drew me close and gave me a strong hug. I thought to myself "wow, he must really like me today. That hug came out of nowhere!" We returned to our seats, mass finished, we had breakfast with the family, and returned to Mr. Tortolito's home.

We didn't have much planned for that day except a nice dinner later that evening. We pondered for a few minutes over where to go to spend some quality time before dinner. Then Mr. Tortolito suggested we go for a walk in our old stomping grounds: the USC campus. I agreed. Where else better to celebrate an anniversary than the place where we met? Plus, it was a nice day out!

We strolled through campus, hand in hand.

Mr. Tortolito: ::points:: Remember we used to have lunch there all the time?
Miss Tortolita: Oh yea! Aww I miss our lunch dates. (real thought: I'm hungry again. I wonder where we're going for dinner.)

Mr. Tortolito: What's your favorite memory of us at USC?
Miss Tortolita: Ooh, probably meeting you randomly throughout the day to steal a kiss (real thought: Why do we keep walking? Tired. Wanna sit down already!)

We continued strolling and chatting about our earlier days. Little did I know that this was all planned. We ended up at the USC Engineering Quad; a grassy area where we used to lounge and dream about our futures together. Later into the conversation, Mr. Tortolito asked if he could remove a promise ring he had given me some years ago. He wanted to "renew his promise." I said "sure." Nothing weird about that, right? Being the oblivious person that I am, the thought of a proposal in the works still had not crossed my mind. Then Mr. Tortolito started reciting the most sweetest and sincere words about love, luck, and forever; none of which I remember much because everything faded as I felt a new ring being slipped onto my left ring finger. I think he ended it with a "will you be my wife?" to which I responded "REALLY?!" followed by a very enthusiastic "YES YES YES!!!"

Needless to say, Mr. Tortolito completely surprised me. I didn't even know he had purchased a ring! But, everything about it was completely perfect and made me one happy Tortolita.

What's your proposal story? Was it a surprise or did you see it coming?